NEWS BRIEFS

BUENA VISTA, PA. Girl, 13, charged as adult in shotgun slaying of father

A 13-year-old girl used a shotgun to fatally shoot her father in the head yesterday in a home overrun with animals and filth, police said.

BUENA VISTA, PA. Girl, 13, charged as adult in shotgun slaying of father

A 13-year-old girl used a shotgun to fatally shoot her father in the head yesterday in a home overrun with animals and filth, police said.

The girl told investigators she used a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot 34-year-old Matthew Booth in the face while he was in bed, according to police.

The girl appeared in municipal court late yesterday, where she was charged as an adult with criminal homicide and ordered held without bail.

A police complaint did not identify a motive in the killing, but her mother, Michelle Fazek, who was separated from Booth, said she had complained several times to county officials that her daughter and the girl's brother, 14, were living in squalor and that her daughter had been abused.

Matthew Booth's neighbor Suzanne Gruber said the girl had told her she had killed her father because she "just couldn't take it any more." Gruber said the girl also told her she had been abused.

MEXICO CITY Border fence will hurt wildlife, Mexico says

Mexico yesterday called on the United States to alter a plan to expand border fences designed to stem illegal immigration, saying the barriers would threaten migratory species accustomed to roaming freely across the frontier.

Ways to minimize environmental damage from the fences could include the creation of cross-border bridge areas so that ecosystems remain connected and "green corridors" of wilderness without roads that would be less attractive to smugglers, according to a report released yesterday.

The report also proposed "live" fences of cactuses, removable fencing and more permeable barriers to allow water, insects and pollen to cross the border. Ecologists say species affected include Mexican jaguars, black bears and the endangered antelope-like Sonora Pronghorn.

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA FBI, IRS conduct search of Sen. Stevens' home

Agents from the FBI and Internal Revenue Service searched the home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens yesterday, focusing on records related to his relationship with an oil-field-services contractor jailed in a public corruption investigation, an official said.

Stevens, 83, has been under federal investigation for a 2000 renovation project, which more than doubled the size of his home in Girdwood, that was overseen by Bill Allen, a contractor who has pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska legislators.

Allen is founder of VECO Corp., an oil-field-services and engineering company that has reaped tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts.

BEIRUIT, LEBANON Army blasts militants' hideouts in refugee camps

The army unleashed tank and artillery fire yesterday on the hideouts of al-Qaida-inspired militants holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, a senior military official said.

Sporadic fighting erupted inside the camp on the outskirts of the port city of Tripoli as the army blasted Fatah al-Islam's remaining positions, witnesses said.

Using loudspeakers, the army renewed its calls for the militants to surrender or allow their families to leave the camp, the state-run National News Agency reported. But the appeal was ignored, it said.

CIMARRON, N.M. Boy Scouts on hike injured by lightning

Lightning struck a New Mexico mountaintop, injuring a group of Boy Scouts as they were hiking back down from the summit.

None of the nine boys or two adults with them on Baldy Mountain was seriously injured, though one was later airlifted to a Santa Fe hospital for treatment.

The lightning struck Sunday afternoon. Most were able to walk to a base camp at an elevation of 10,000 feet, where vehicles from the Philmont Scout Ranch and at least one ambulance took them to area health facilities.

-- From wire reports

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